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While the al-Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra organization is taking over almost all the territory facing our Golan Heights, and the Islamic State is breaking into Lebanese territory from the north – and after it declared last week that it was "launching the war to liberate the Lebanon region and add it to the Islamic State" – the last thing Hezbollah needs right now is a conflict with Israel.

Its two existential enemies, Sunni organizations al-Qaeda and Islamic State, are outflanking it from the east and from the south, and it is deeply engaged in that area. The definers of the Middle East have changed, and they are no longer Arabs against Israel, but Sunnis against Shiites.

In America, the flare-up in anti-Semitism is somehow related to the ascension of President Donald Trump. But just what is the connection? Trump's daughter Ivanka even converted to Judaism and he has 'three beautiful Jewish grandchildren'. However, there is another way of looking at it. The new President is keeping his word about cracking down on Muslims at large. But in advancing this highly controversial policy, the President has run afoul of the US Constitution, as was pointed out to him by a federal judge. Nonetheless, he may have sent unintentionally a viral message to violent anti-Semites, who may be now saying to themselves:

'Look at what Trump is doing to the Muslims; he not only talks, he does something about them! We must get off our asses and also do something about the Jews. Hell, they've even infiltrated Trump's family for Christ's sake!'

Radical Islam has declared war on both Europe and America, whether Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin or President Barack Obama in Washington like it or not. Berlin is only the latest target - a copycat of the horrific truck attack in Nice, France last July that also plowed over may innocent people. Western leaders have been living in denial - civil liberties come first. And that is why most democratic countries in the Western world are paying for it in blood with their innocent civilians being blown to smithereens by bombs or run over in the streets by trucks driven by Muslim fanatics.

Since the current wave began, over 3,000 civilians have been killed in the US; Germany is relatively new to the game. One could not help feeling sorry for the dispirited Chancellor for recently letting hundreds of thousands of pitiful Arab refugees into Germany only to be repaid by a terrorist hijacking a truck and running over scores of people in her capital city. But unless and until Western leaders come to their senses and take the necessary security measures at home, more Muslim terrorists will murder more civilians - it's almost like Leonard Cohen's prophetic lyrics 'First we take Manhattan (9.11.2001) then we take Berlin'.

An unidentified pilotless drone flies into Israeli air space from Syria. Israeli Air Force controllers launch a Patriot (American made) surface-to-air missile. It misses the target. A second Patriot goes streaking skyward. It also goes wide. An Israeli jet then fires an air-to-air rocket - again no bull's eye. After penetrating Israeli airspace by some four kilometers (over two miles) the drone turns around and then flies back unharmed into Syria. A small part of a Patriot missile falls on the head of an Israeli girl far below. She is not seriously hurt.

In the Middle East, Russian Air Force pilots are at it again. Recently they startled two US Navy vessels by roaring over their decks in a mock attack, and now they have threatened an Israeli jet, apparently on a peaceful reconnaissance flight over what was the former Syria, trying to spot more Syrian-Iran shipments of sophisticated weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon. In the American incident, President Obama viewed it as a one-time thing and did not take it too seriously - along the line of 'boys will be boys'. And Obama probably got this right - if Donald Trump were President we'd probably be in the middle of World War III with Russian's new Czar Vladimir!

'You ain't seen nothin’ yet!' This was the message of the Daesh video released two days after the horrific bombings in Brussels. Basking in its latest bloodbath, the Muslim maniacs warned that Britain or maybe Spain are now in its crosshairs. But bear in mind that the Brits have learned their lesson since the deadly al Qaeda attack on London in 2005, and have prevented several more attempts. MI-5 & 6 are reportedly on the ball. But Britain may only be a 'false flag' in order to catch some other European capital off-guard. In any case, it's a safe bet that now energized after its latest 'success' in Brussels, Daesh is now planning for its next victim.

A ceasefire to halt the carnage in a bloody civil war should be a welcome event. But this is not likely in Syria. Two of the most vicious combatants, Daesh and Jabhat al Nusra (an affiliate of al Qaeda) are not even party to it, and Russia has forewarned that it will react with force to any violations by the rebels who seek to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad. And after President Putin sent in his airborne 'cavalry' to save Assad by bombing just about anything that moved, the Syrian tyrant is firmly in place in his presidential palace in Damascus.

ISIL's writing was on the wall, or should have been - but no one was really ready to see it! After the targeted killing of ‘Jihadi John’, Britain had better be on very high alert. ISIL has escalated its murderous campaign beyond the borders of Syria and Iraq. First Russia, and then the West, stepped up their operations in Syria, and ISIL has hit back hard.

First came the blowing up of the Russian airliner over Sinai, then the horrific suicide bombings in the Hezbollah quarter of Beirut, and now the killing spree in Paris. After blowing the Russian airplane to smithereens, ISIL then issued a video threat to Israel:

'Don't think that because we are fighting in Syria and elsewhere that we have forgotten about you... we are coming to get you in Eilat!'

Egypt is in the midst of a war that can be categorized as a low-intensity conflict. This category represents a common pattern of military campaigns in the early twenty-first century: sub-conventional wars fought by armies and security services belonging to states against armies of terrorilla- fully armed and hierarchical organizations that operate among civilian populations, combining guerilla and terror warfare tactics with the logic of terrorism. The civilians provide shelter and aid, whether under duress or in solidarity, and they always suffer the bitter consequences of the conflict.

In Canada, there were two terror attacks within two days. The first was a run-over attack, and the second was an attack on the parliament in the capital city of Ottawa. In New York, police officers were assaulted with an axe. In London, a cell of four members planned to murder Queen Elizabeth last week, armed with knives. A few months ago, France foiled a plot to blow up the Eifel Tower. In Israel, we have had a little of everything. Both run-over attempts and murder in a stabbing attack. Welcome to the global intifada.

Alas, leading from behind will not work for US President Barack Obama in the Middle East. American jets are bombing and Tomahawk cruise missiles are blasting Islamic State ground forces and oil refineries in northern Syria and Iraq. After Gen. Martin Dempsey forewarned Obama that the air strikes on IS had better be serious or else he might have to recommend ground forces, the President got the message. Adding insult to injury, two of his former defense secretaries, Robert Gates and Leon Panetta, also castigated Obama for being too eager to withdraw US troops from Iraq, a move that has exacerbated the overall situation. With Saudi Arabia, Jordan, UAE, Bahrain and even Qatar joining Obama's invitation to follow his lead, Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron has now told the UN General Assembly that he's on board, as is Holland. The meltdown in Iraq and the civil war in Syria have spawned the IS juggernaut in those two former states and forced Obama to jettison his soft power, and switch to a harder foreign policy. This is how the US President described it in his address to the current session of the UN General Assembly in New York:

'The only language understood by killers like this (IS) is the language of force'.

Is ISIL now perpetrating a massacre of Kurds in northern Syria? Yes, according to Kurdish leaders in both Syria and Iraq. In the past several days, ISIL tanks, artillery and motorized forces have been pounding Kurdish militia in the area near the town of Kobani, which is nearly surrounded except for an escape route north to the Turkish border. An estimated sixty Kurdish villages have been overrun - thirty-nine fell on September 19th alone. Thousands of frantic Kurdish women, girls and small children have been fleeing to the north. Many have reportedly been kidnapped along the way by ISIL. The Kurdish militia are trying to stem the ISIL onslaught, but are vastly out gunned by the Muslim fanatics. President Masoud Barzani, the senior Kurdish leader has issued an appeal to the world before it is too late:

'I call upon the international community to take every measure as soon as possible to save Kobani and the people of Syrian Kurdistan from the terrorists - they will not hesitate to commit crimes and atrocities, therefore, they must be hit wherever they are'.

The current chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff has this policy - he calls them as he sees them. Apparently he has serious doubts about President Barack Obama's strategy for defeating ISIL in Iraq and Syria by air power. And that is why Gen. Martin Dempsey has told Congress:

'If there are threats to the US, then I, of course, would go back to the President and make a recommendation that may include the use of US military ground forces'.

Predictably, Obama hit the roof. If Dempsey had opened the door to the military need for an eventual deployment of American 'boots on the ground', Obama slammed it shut. Appearing before American troops twenty-four hours later in Tampa, Florida hours later, the President declared unequivocally:

'The American forces that have been deployed to Iraq do not and will not have a combat mission'.

In an effort to drum up support for his newfound ISIL strategy, Obama noted that Britain and France were already flying missions over Iraq, and that Canada and Australia were sending military advisors.

The historical irony is striking, on the thirteenth anniversary of 9/11, another U.S. President, Barack Obama, has been forced to declare total war on a new breed of Muslim maniacs. However, Obama is no George Bush, a ranting Republican hawk raring to take on al Qaeda. This time it was a dovish Democrat, who at the outset of his term, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his campaign promises - the judges in Oslo had discerned correctly that Obama would take a new approach in the Middle East and conclude America's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But the reality of fanatical Islam, far more savage than even al Qaida, has upset Obama's 'best laid plans'.

In Israel, the Galei Tzahal radio station has reported that al Sisi was willing to contribute 1,600 square kilometers of Sinai to expand Gaza five times its present size. The new territory, together with Gaza, would provide the Palestinians with a Palestinian state under control of the Palestinian Authority, which is headed by President Mahmoud Abbas. On August 6, 2005, the IsraCast website first reported on a land swap proposal for Sinai that was proposed by Prof. Yehoshua Ben Arieh. At that time, IsraCast sponsor, Avi Yaffe even raised the question at a private meeting with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who expressed interest in the idea.

7:48 AM-August 5th, two minutes before the latest Egyptian brokered ceasefire was to go into force: Hamas launches a barrage of 25 more rockets at Jerusalem and communities in central Israel. Again, air raid sirens wail and hundreds of thousands of Israelis rush to their bomb shelters. Israel's Iron Dome missiles blast off, knocking seven of the incoming rockets out of the sky. They were on target for population centers. Several others do explode on the ground but there are no Israeli casualties. The rest are allowed to land harmlessly in open areas. Imagine how many Israeli children, women and men would have been killed and wounded if those seven rockets had hit apartment buildings. This has been at the core of the current conflagration and the IDF's mission to suppress this rocketing of Israeli civilians that has escalated ever since Israel totally evacuated the Gaza Strip in 2005. The IDF estimates that Hamas terrorists fired 3,350 rockets during its 26-day Operation that was triggered by hundreds more rockets in the preceding week. Yet critics of Israel, including some foreign governments, are castigating the Jewish state for not acting proportionately to the Hamas threat.

The deaths of 13 Israeli infantrymen killed in house-to-house fighting with Hamas in Sajaiya has shocked and saddened Israel. In a news conference with Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon, Prime Minister Netanyahu declared: “We are fighting for our very home and we are determined to win this battle. No other war has been so justified as the IDF's campaign to halt Hamas rocketing of Israeli civilians.” Make no mistake, Israel is determined that the deaths of the Golani soldiers will not be in vain. The country's leaders and people are resolved to follow through and prevent another rocket blitz of Israel or tunnel attack whenever the Hamas Islamists in Gaza decide to do so. Netanyahu noted that many world leaders, starting with U.S. President Barack Obama, had expressed understanding for Israel's right of self-defense. Even more telling were the countries in the region (Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan) who were also in Israel's corner. The only two countries rooting for Hamas were Iran and Qatar.

'Hamas is responsible, Hamas will pay!' Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu has warned that Israel is about to take off the gloves, after the bodies of three Israeli youths were found near Hebron, a hotbed of Hamas terrorism on the West Bank. After the massive 18-day search, the bodies of Naftali Fraenkel, Gil-ad Shaar and Eyal Yifrach were uncovered in a hole. Two suspected Hamas terrorists from the Hebron area, named as Marwan Kawasme and Amer Abu Aysha, are believed responsible. The manhunt continues for the two suspects, who are believed to be hiding out in the West Bank. Apparently, pretending to be religious Jews, the two killers gave a lift to the three hitchhiking Israelis and then shot them dead when Gil-ad Shaar tried to contact the Israel police on his cell phone. A police recording of the call indicates all three were shot dead in the car where bullet casings were found.

The bitter rivalry between Sunni and Shiite Muslims has erupted in Iraq with greater fury than ever. Since the U.S. withdrawal in 2011, the country has been racked with bloody terrorism between the two Muslim sects. Now a fanatic Sunni military force, which was spawned amid the Syrian civil war and known as ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), has shown up in Iraq where it has made stunning territorial gains. In just a few days, the vastly outnumbered Sunni fighters routed five Iraqi army divisions, capturing large quantities of American weapons and advancing on Baghdad…

It was highly significant that U.S. President Barack Obama selected West Point as the venue to articulate his foreign and military policy. Without saying it in so many words Obama sent a message loud and clear - America has abdicated its role of 'policeman of the world'. Obama has jettisoned the projection of American military power that characterized his predecessor George W. Bush. Addressing the graduating cadets, their commander-in-chief told them: “The U.S. will use military force, unilaterally if necessary, when our core interests demand it - when our people are threatened, when our livelihoods are at stake; when the security of our allies is in danger.” But his punch line related to global issues that do not directly threaten the U.S.: "Then the threshold of military action must be much higher. In such circumstances, we should not go it alone. Instead, we must mobilize allies and partners to take collective action." The truth is this has been a cornerstone of Obama's policy of 'leading from behind' in the Middle East, as exemplified by the crises in Libya and currently in Syria. Clearly, Obama's refusal to make good on his warning that Assad would face the consequences if he repeated his use of chemical weapons has actually tipped the scales in favor of the regime against the rebels.